Converting the Converted, and Other Tricks of the Light -- Adrants

Love this story from Brian Collins to describe what a brand is and how it should act. He always has great examples! Read the full article for other great stories that Brian told during the One Show presentation.

On Wednesday at the One Show Festival, design guru Brian Collins illustrated the power of branding with a history lesson about pirates.

Or rather, just their flag.

Back in 1748, if you had the misfortune of being a single bobbing ship at sea when a tattered vessel with a skull and crossbones crossed your path, you knew instantly what to expect.

"You're fucked." (Collins, verbatim.)

"As you sail closer," he continued, "the brand promise is reinforced by everything you see."

A cannon fires, shots go off: the brand promise becomes brand immersion. In three hours, maybe less, the brand delivers everything it promised: death, pillage, and maybe a not-so-promising hostage situation.

The fulfillment of the skull-and-crossbones "brand promise" remained so consistent over fifty-plus years that, by the 1800s, pirates didn't even need to waste gunpowder. They had only to raise the black flag to yield the desired results (surrender, animal fear, free doubloons and maybe some teabags).

Pirates (TM!) succeeded because they connected brand promise to performance.

Link: Converting the Converted, and Other Tricks of the Light -- Adrants.

Comments

[CJ]

Fantastic ... and it's amazing how they built that brand with any TV ads!

[erik roscam abbing]

That's a great example David, but it also is a very accurate demonstrator of what happened with branding in the late 90s: like pirates becoming lazy and just raising their flag to achieve the desired result, brands started confusing promise with delivery.

The result was empty promises without the tangible benefits to fulfill them. Rather than the brand being a platform for the delivery of meaningful experiences and innovations, they became a facade behind which marketeers could hide from the scrutiny of the consumer. Until the consumer started finding out of course. And started demanding authenticity, transparency, fulfilment of promises and true meaning. To me that's where brands rediscovered their true value and meaning.

I wonder how the pirates would have managed in say 2001? Maybe someone would have posted a blog entry on the absence of any real cannons and gun powder on their ships. Soon enough the skull and crossbone would have faded to an empty promise of a forlorn era. And even pirates would have had to fulfill their brand promise to make a living!

Brands define the relationship between the organisation and its end users. This relationship should be based on exciting and relevant promises and the actual fulfillment of these promises in tangible touchpoints. The two need each other like pirates need gun powder. In the end.

cheers,
erik

[David Polinchock]

Erik:

Excellent point! You're 100% correct that brands haven't learned to truly deliver on their brand promises and in some cases, have gotten pretty lazy. Thanks for your thoughts!